In a scenario that’s reminding some online of the Seinfeld episode when Kramer’s new phone number was so similar to a movie listing hotline that he started to answer calls as Mr. Moviefone (while rifling through actual newspapers for showtimes), the actual Moviefone is now being run by one employee.
Moviefone — which began in 1989 as a dial-up service for checking movie times — filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy last month, after parent company Helios and Matheson suffered unsustainable losses from MoviePass, now only has one staff member left.
According to Variety, General manager Matt Atchity, former EIC of Rotten Tomatoes, has “been retained by the trustee overseeing Helios and Matheson’s liquidation to keep Moviefone running pending a sale of the property.”
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Moviefone is currently reported to be worth around $4 million which is 1.1% of its former value ($388 million in 1999). All Moviefone employees except Atchity were laid off at the end of January. The site’s listings are all automated, pulling movie times in from theater chains all across the country.
For more movie news, check out our ranking of all the Batman movie batsuits, the theory that Robert Pattinson’s batsuit contains the gun that killed Bruce Wayne’s parents, and what Harrison Ford said about Indiana Jones 5.
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Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN and a member of the Television Critics Association. Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and Facebook at Facebook.com/MattBFowler.
Source: IGN.com Moviefone Now Being Run by One Employee